Ma Blimey

Yo Boathunter! You're seriously looking then - good on you! Is there a hug smiley on here? You can change your sign off on the other forum to 'Official stalker of Ma Blimey' now For you (and anyone else interested) here is the link for the build-blog (no proper building yet, but we have a floor)! We won't get really properly started 'til after the move date, which is now 13th October.

Hi Tam, Yep, there's a meetbrief. The numbers are on the hull and the kadaster number. We have the original Kadaster deregistration doc dated a month ago, a bill of sale and signed contracts to prove we own the boat. No boat safety cert was required as it's 'in progress'???? Porta potti was tongue in cheek - the disgusting orange thing in the bathroom is the remains of the pump-out toilet which we'll reinstate with a 'muncher'. Plus I guess we'll put the black tank in as it's a requirement. CEVNI - we test each other constantly from the regulations and the book but it's no match for experience. We got our ICC & CEVNI doing a one-day course on a narrowboat (which is a joke IMHO) - I certainly wouldn't have given me a certificate! Scott has had plenty of experience on narrowboats but I've had just that one day. We're very aware that there are going to be some serious big boys out there and we're ill equipped. Thank you so much for yr help and advice (have just spent a very pleasant hour reading your/Di's foodie blog and turning green looking at your beautiful barge). Your early days were just round the corner from where we are now, Bull's Bridge, Uxbridge etc. Do hope our paths cross in the future. Thanks again. Caro

Wow.. if you don't mind I'm going to pick my way through this... lots of questions Firstly, looks best that we re-register in Holland then on the Dutch Kadaster. Will we need a dutch address for that? 2. Also definitely will need to sort ATIS out as we are going through Belgium? 3. We have insured the ship with an English company (they specified that the surveyor must be registered, qualified and known to them) and our surveyor was. Next survey is due 2019. All they asked for was our hull survey report. The ship is insured at the buying price and going up as we refit)does that sound reasonable? 4. We will be cruising and refitting on the move very soon! Even if it's with nothing but a porta potti and thermos! I think the date we have to move on from the yard is end of Sept. Are we mad? We've both done the ICC and CEVNI (though if I had been the examiner, I would have thrown me off the boat). Sorry, last question - is it a legal requirement to be registered somewhere? The owner of the yard we are at had her deregistered and told us most people only register their boats when it is a requirement for a marine mortgage and that a good percentage of boats aren't registered at all.

Am going to check out your links now - thanks so much. I was under the impression that if we registered with the SSR but were cruising outside of UK, we only had to comply with whatever country we were in. Also, not sure which publication I got this from, I thought that as we were under 20m various things weren't necessary (like VHF etc). I really need to check the A-Z of everything and anything as there are so many conflicting sources of info. Just for info (and a smile), we actually bought the Barge Buyer's handbook (fab book) but it took ages to come and it arrived a week after we had handed our money over. We spent an entire evening going through all the things you 'absolutely must not do' when buying a barge, saying to each other, "oops, we did that, and that, yep, did that, oh no we did that too" and ditto for all the things we should have done, (like get decent advice from a reputable forum) we didn't. Thankfully, although it looks like a lifetime's work, I think we were very blessed and she's a solid little thing. Just grateful that I've found this place and now we can start doing things properly.

All done! We were hoping to find a boat and move by last year but it all fell through. Going to take the easy route though and go across in a van with them through eurotunnel and then drive from Calais. They're good on trips in the van *she says, looking for the fingers crossed smiley*

More pics as promised... I'm just showing off now that we are a "two toilet family" And one of her out of the water before she was cleaned and blaacked Now I'm going to try and work out where I need to post the other million questions I have.

Oh my gosh - so many replies! And I've only just found them - so sorry! I asked a question somewhere further up and was watching the replies on there. I'll get my head round how this forum malarky works eventually! I was going to put some more pics up (especially the toilet) as I've heard how popular toilet conversations are, but I can't access Photobucket right now, so that will have to wait. Not sure yet either how to answer individual posts so I'll just say, she is a 17.5m tjalk and we got her from a salvage yard! The hull is good, needed one small plate. The anodes will last another year so we'll have them redone later. The inside has been waterlogged for a long time and hubby has been over in the Netherlands for the last week or so ripping and stripping. We're renting out our house and moving over lock, stock and barrel at the end of September (with two dogs and two cats)!! I have started a blog of sorts but it was really more to keep family abreast of our situation and whereabouts. Hopefully it will get more about how the restoration is progressing once we're actually 'at it'. I really can't tell you how amazed I am by the help and support and friendly welcome I've had just in the few days I've been posting. I really look forward to picking all your brains clean and becoming a seasoned fellow boater. Thank you so much for all your input. (toilet pics to follow - promise)

Right, the floor/ceiling is going down now. Hatches incorporated all the way through. No polystyrene! We're going to go with the vents fore, mid and aft and just keep it dry. The walls seem to have a combination of rockwool and some silver plastic stuff in. The damp and ruined stuff we're ripping out along with the squidgy rotten wood and insulation-wise I think we'll replace like with like. Thank you ALL so much for the input. Now, I have some questions re. the SSR and other things , should I start a new post or carry on here? And is it ok to put pictures in this thread so you get what I'm talking about? (I have some GREAT ones of the current toilet)

I think that sounds like just the right blend of good advice and common sense "sod it, go for it" seems to have the necessary gravitas... I'm just compiling my list of 'other' questions (which definitely include toilets, tanks, t'internet and troubleshooting). I cannot tell you how glad I am to have found this forum.

This is amazingly helpful - thank you. Our ship is a 17.5m Tjalk we are planning to take her from Netherlands, through Belgium to France. Maybe at some time (a long way off though), bring her back to UK. I had no idea that the French don't allow ring mains! Does that mean we can only use 12v or just that we can only have individual appliances? It's all very confusing to us at the moment. She has been deregistered from the dutch registry and is unregistered at the moment.

Think we're going to have to do some serious thinking - and this is only the beginning. Just wait 'til I get started on the electrics, leisure batteries, inverters, shore power, chargers, split relays, etc. etc., they're all just words to me at the moment! I've actually posted some pics up in the newbie introduce yourself bit, which might indicate that we've bitten off if not more than we can chew, certainly enough to give our jaws a good work out! Sorry, missed this in the raft of replies! It's mainly under the floor to start with (we haven't ripped all the walls off...yet)! And it's the floor that's worrying us as we've been given conflicting advice as to how it should be insulated (1) make sure no air at all gets to the steel (2) make sure you have airflow. Also the bilges were wet when we took up the flooring although it's all dried out and been greased now.

Heck, there are a lot of differing opinions! I think we're going to have to put a whole load in the pot before we make an 'informed' decision. Someone also mentioned rockwool which was something else we had considered until we were warned off it after being told it retained moisture and condensate and would therefore rot the flooring! This is one helluver learning curve! I think I've only replied to one reply here (still trying to get the hang of the posting and quoting thing) but thanks all of you for your input. I fear we're going to need a lot more! Caro

Hi everyone, apologies, have already posted a question in another section (which was answered in minutes) before realising there was this 'introduce yourselves' bit. We are Ma & Pa Blimey aka Caro & Scott, and have just bought ourselves a 116 year old rusting hulk! She is an ex inland waterways cargo vessel currently moored near Rotterdam. We know virtually nothing about boats apart from obvious transferable common sense stuff that comes with having done up our house (and we know she should be above water and not below), but apart from that we are complete novices and will probably spend the first six months camping in the hold with a laptop , asking questions on here! This is her on her way back to the shipyard after the hull survey... The kitchen, which is no longer there (notice the nice, squidgy wall panelling) And this.... is what most of the floor looks like Looking forward to getting to know you all and also hopefully taking advantage of your expertise! Caro

That is exactly what the bloke in the boatyard was trying to do. We don't want the sprayfoam as she may need a couple more plates done in the future being as she's 116 years old. At the moment she's completely ripped out and we've just greased the entire inside hull but we want to put in access hatches to enable the removal of insulation should the need arise. Blimey, I just re-read that and it sounds like I know what I'm talking about. I actually don't and this steep learning curve is going to result in a lost more posts here I think!

Thanks guys. Very impressed with speed of replies on here. I didn't think it was actually 'illegal' but really just needed some pooled thinking.The guy in the boatyard is telling porkies methinks. Will post up some pics and try and be a bit more relaxed next time I post!